MAPPING THE CREATION-EVOLUTION DEBATE IN PUBLIC LIFE by ANDREW JUDSON HART ...

117 Pages·2016·1.16 MB·English

MAPPING THE CREATION-EVOLUTION DEBATE IN PUBLIC LIFE
by
ANDREW JUDSON HART
(Under the Direction of Edward Panetta)
ABSTRACT
Evolution versus creation is a divisive issue as religion is pitted against science in public
discourse. Despite mounting scientific evidence in favor of evolution and legal decisions against
the teaching of creationism in public schools, the number of advocates who still argue for
creationist teaching in the science curriculum of public schools remains quite large. Public
debates have played a key role in the creationist movement, and this study examines public
debates between creationists and evolutionists over thirty years to track trends and analyze
differences in arguments and political style in an attempt to better understand why creationism
remains salient with many in the American public.

INDEX WORDS: Creation; Evolution; Public Debate; Argumentation; Political Style; Bill
Nye
MAPPING THE CREATION-EVOLUTION DEBATE IN PUBLIC LIFE

by

ANDREW JUDSON HART
B.A., The University of Georgia, 2010
B.S.F.R., The University of Georgia, 2010
M.A.T., The University of Georgia, 2014

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS

ATHENS, GEORGIA
2016
© 2016
Andrew Judson Hart
All Rights Reserved
MAPPING THE CREATION-EVOLUTION DEBATE IN PUBLIC LIFE

by

ANDREW JUDSON HART

Major Professor: Edward Panetta
Committee: Barbara Biesecker
Thomas Lessl

Electronic Version Approved:

Suzanne Barbour
Dean of the Graduate School
The University of Georgia
May 2016
iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project would not have been possible without Dr. Ed Panetta pushing me down the
path to study the creation-evolution debates and his work with me on this through the many
drafts and edits. Dr. Barbara Biesecker and Dr. Thomas Lessl have also been invaluable as their
advice on this thesis and the work I did in their classes while fine-tuning my work on the debates
proved to be vital for completing this project. A special thank you to the members of my
committee who were willing to meet on short notice to make this possible. There are many
faculty members who were not on my committee who have helped me with this. These include
Dr. Celeste Condit, Dr. Belinda Stillion Southard, and Dr. Bjorn Stillion Southard. To Hays
Watson, thank you for providing me the opportunity to join the program at the last minute. This
has been a fantastic journey.
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
Introduction to the Controversy ...............................................................................1
Justification for the Study ........................................................................................2
Creationism and the Creationist Movement ............................................................3
Creation-Evolution Debates ...................................................................................10
Debates Chosen for Study ......................................................................................17
Preview of the Thesis .............................................................................................25
2 ARGUMENTATION ..................................................................................................29
Argument by Definition/Identity and Definitions in Argumentation ....................29
Argument by Division ............................................................................................41
3 POLITICAL STYLE ...................................................................................................49
Civic Republican Style ..........................................................................................49
Elite Civic Republicanism Versus Vernacular Civic Republicanism ....................63
Bill Nye Style and Persona ....................................................................................79
4 CONCLUSIONS .........................................................................................................84
REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................88
vi
APPENDICES
A TRANSCRIPT: RUSSELL DOOLITTLE VS. DUANE GISH DEBATE (1981) ......97
1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Introduction to the Controversy
Evolution versus creation is a divisive issue as religion is pitted against science in public
discourse. As Gallup polls and National Science Foundation polls have found, as many as half
of the United States populous still reports holding creationist views.1 Dan Kahan writes,
“Evolution is a special kind of issue. The position you take on it is an expression of who you are
in the world in which there are many diverse sorts of people and in which there is a sad tendency
of one sort to ridicule and hold in contempt those of another.”2 Many of these appeals have
fomented themselves in public arguments and debates over creationism and evolution. A recent
prominent public debate occurred on February 4, 2014 as Bill Nye “The Science Guy” debated
Ken Ham, the founder and CEO of the Creation Museum and the Young Earth Creationists, on
the merits of evolution and creationism at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. The
topic of the debate centered on the question: “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s
modern scientific era?” Though there were only 900 seats available at the Creation Museum, the
debate was viewed live on the Internet by an estimated 750,000 people at the time. Many more
have watched the broadcast since then on YouTube, and perhaps even a few saw the rebroadcast
of the debate on C-Span 15 days later.
Despite the decades of evidence in support of evolutionary science, creationist beliefs
still hold great sway over the general public. According to a 2012 Gallup Poll on the issue,
approximately 46% of Americas believed that God created man in the present form within the
2
last 10,000 years.3 Another poll, this one from the Pew Research Center in 2013, found that 60%
of Americans believed that humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while 33%
rejected the idea of evolution, stating that "humans and other living things have existed in their
present form since the beginning of time."4 Perhaps the Nye vs. Ham debate will shift public
perception of this important topic, but only time will tell.
Justification for the Study
Despite the scientific evidence in favor of evolution and legal decisions against the
teaching of creationism in public schools as part of science curriculum, the number of advocates
who still argue for creationist teaching in the science curriculum of public schools remains quite
large. This study is looking into the ways that public debates have played a role in maintaining
this strong contingent of advocates. Specifically, I examine how creationists have adapted their
arguments over time in these public debates and why these arguments remain salient within the
general public. In addition to the ways in which creationist arguments have changed, I will be
looking to examine how evolutionist arguments have changed as well. By mapping the
arguments on both sides of the controversy, I hope to identify the strengths and weaknesses of
both creationist and evolutionist forces and to describe the effectiveness of both positions in
public debates. In short, this essay is designed to examine the creation/evolution controversy as
played out in three public debates and to examine the reasons why creationism continues to
maintain a strong hold over many in the general public. In order to address these issues, I will
study creation/evolution debates using two different vantage points: argumentation and political
style. Given my background within the biological sciences and teaching biology, I am
committed to and believe strongly in the teaching of evolutionary science in public schools.
3
Through this study, I hope to provide a better understanding of the debates and strengthen the
case of evolutionist advocates for evolutionary science curriculum in public schools.
This thesis tracks the creation/evolution debates and the argumentative and stylistic
changes by comparing three debates. These debates are Duane Gish versus Russell Doolittle
(1981), Duane Gish versus Kenneth Saladin (1988), and Ken Ham versus Bill Nye (2014). I
focus on the Bill Nye and Ken Ham evolution/creation debate from 2014 to understand how this
debate compares to the two debates from the 1980s. The Nye-Ham debate is interesting to study
because Bill Nye is not a credentialed scientist but an engineer by trade. Instead of claiming
credibility due to a scientific background, Nye is perceived as credible because of his public
persona and his brand as “The Science Guy.” As a result, Nye is recognized as a voice of science
and an entertainer in the media age. Due to the recency of the debate, there has been scant
discussion over the Bill Nye and Ken Ham evolution/creation debate within the literature. As a
result, this is a largely uninterrogated text that should provide insight to the ongoing controversy.
Creationism and the Creationist Movement
Evolutionary science first rose to prominence in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his
book “The Origin of Species.” Evolutionary theory is based on a couple of overarching
premises. These include the idea that more organisms are produced than can survive, variation in
traits will make some offspring better adapted to survive, and these traits will be passed down to
future generations.5 Creationism is often viewed as the counterpoint to evolutionary science and
refers to the viewpoint that the literal interpretation of the Biblical account of the origin of the
species is the correct explanation for the existence of the earth and the living beings on it.6
However, it was not until the 1960s that creationism came to refer to a Christian fundamentalist